


One for the Cyborgs

by oudeteron



Category: Terminator - All Media Types, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Canon Quotes, Cyborgs, F/M, Gen, Implied Relationships, Missing Scene, the thin line between human and machine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 11:32:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8247242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oudeteron/pseuds/oudeteron
Summary: Cameron and John have a conversation about feelings.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I imagined this as a missing scene somewhere towards the end of the series, after Cameron starts having her glitches. But it can work as a standalone too.

“I know I'm not very spontaneous.”

“What?”

It certainly _felt_ spontaneous enough for Cameron to blurt out a comment like that out of nowhere while they were standing in the kitchen, each busy cutting a different sort of vegetable for a recipe Sarah had left at home before heading out that morning. At least, that's what John would have thought with anyone else. But therein lay the trouble, because this was Cameron, and what felt like a display of random spontaneity to John was clearly just another run-of-the-mill non-sequitur to the terminator. It was hard, he supposed, to feel like being spontaneous if you didn't even have the concept.

Couldn't recognize that you'd just done it.

“You're a machine. It's not like it's your,” he struggled with the concept for a second before allowing it, again, for Cameron only, “fault.”

“Yes,” she replied in that cool monotone. “I'm a machine. I know that unnerves people. Sarah. You.”

John wasn't _usually_ unnerved. Moments like this, though, that was when reality came bearing down on him like an out-of-control freight train. He was making soup with a killer cyborg and talking about the intricacies of spontaneous behavior in humans, which the cyborg seemed to be having trouble with. And this was, for them, a slow day.

“Do you think I act spontaneous? Random?”

Always with the questions. They were always so blunt, nothing left to diplomacy or mere tasteful silence. Then again, another thing about being a cyborg was the redundancy of food – and yet here was Cameron, chopping onions with inhuman precision for John's sake, as if the task mattered to her beyond that. Maybe John could humor her after all. _You help me out and I help you._

“Well, you do things, say things. Like just now. If – if you were human, that would qualify as spontaneous. You just don't realize it,” he stopped himself from adding _yet_.

“But how? I'm a machine.”

“Beats me. You glitch out, I suppose. In your own way.” John returned to his carrots, ignoring how much more efficient, not to mention neater and all around perfect, honestly, Cameron would have been at this activity. It was bad enough having the most efficient killing machine ever invented doing the laundry.

“Anyway,” John said when the silence became a little too much to bear. “You'll have to wait to ask someone else. I don't think I understand how you work.” He echoed the sentiment Cameron had expressed to him earlier, when he asserted – carelessly, stupidly at that – that she didn't have the capacity to feel.

Wait, sentiment? He could have sworn he had meant to say _fact_.

“You do.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Understand. More than you think.”

John gave an all-purpose shrug, the one he'd invented specifically for conversations that left him at an unsettling loss. It barely took him a week to master it. “Maybe _future me_ understands but I'm lost, sorry.”

“But you're beginning to learn. Future you had to come from somewhere,” Cameron insisted. In her composed, impartial tone, the statement immediately rang true at face value. She hesitated, or seemed to hesitate as John hastily corrected himself, gearing up for her next topic change. “And I'm sorry. I didn't mean to kill that bird.”

Oh. That. Example of why spontaneous wasn't always good. “Does it make any difference to you?” John couldn't resist asking. The idea of Cameron meaning to do something, other than protect him from others like herself, only less – he squashed that thought. Spontaneous. He was going to stick with spontaneous. “Did that make you...upset?”

“I told you before, John.” Cameron flicked her hair out of her face and for a moment, as she shot him a glance, John was sure he saw something more than had any right to be there in those hazel eyes. “We're not built to be cruel.”


End file.
